After a protracted legal battle, Mercer County Superior Court Judge Paul Innes today ordered Gov. Jon Corzine to release about 740 pages of email correspondences between him and union leader/ex-girlfriend Karla Katz.

But don’t expect to see the emails any time soon. Attorney General Anne Milgram, who respresents Corzine in the matter, has vowed to appeal the decision with the state Supreme Court and will seek a stay on the release of the documents.

Judge Innes ruled that only 45 pages were not subject to disclosure.

Today’s decision is the outcome of a lawsuit that has started just one day short of a year ago. On May 31, 2007, Republican State Chairman Tom Wilson filed suit to force the Corzine Administration to release the emails, which they suspected contained discussions about a contract negotiation between the state and Katz’s union, Communications Workers of America Local 1034.

Union Leader Carla Katz has filed a lawsuit against several branches of her own union today, charging top officials with waging personal attacks and investigations against her in retaliation for her opposition to some concessions they supported.

The Katz complaint was filed against Communications Workers of America President Larry Cohen, District Vice President Chris Shelton, Legislative and Political Director Robert Master, as well as the leaders of five local CWA unions that supported last year’s agreement with the state.

Katz heads up CWA Local 1034, which, according to her press release, is the largest CWA local in the country.  She filed the complaint this morning at the United States District Court in Trenton. 

While the largest branch of the Communications Workers of America backed Rob Andrews for Senate last week, two of the union’s smaller locals stuck with incumbent Frank Lautenberg.

On Friday, CWA Locals 1039 and 1032 endorsed the incumbent Senator.  Combined, the two have about 12,000 members.

Learning the alliances and leanings of New Jersey politics isn’t always easy, as Constance Rocklein from Murray Sabrin’s U.S. Senate campaign found out when she went in search of groups that Sabrin might speak to in search of votes in the June 3 Republican primary.  Rocklein sent out this e-mail:

A hugely misguided attempt to eliminate the Department of Agriculture is the spark which has lit an angry fire which took over West State street recently as an unlikely combination of farmers with goats, pigs, tractors, and horses, CWA Local 1034 union members, labor leaders and politicians joined forces at one big statehouse rally to keep the “Garden” in the ‘Garden State’. One ‘Future Farmer of America’ student held a piglet donning a t-shirt that read “Butcher me, not the Department of Agriculture.” Another held a piglet adorned with a shirt which read “Cut the Pork, not Agriculture.” 

Eliminating the Department of Agriculture (NJDA) does not make sense and Governor Corzine should reverse course.  The agriculture and food complex is one of New Jersey's largest industries, and at $82 billion dollars, follows only pharmaceuticals and tourism in the economic benefits it brings to New Jersey. The Agriculture department is dominantly federally funded, with only $26.7 million of its $354 million budget coming from the state.  Closing the department, which efficiently and effectively serves that industry, fails to save significant, if any, money.

N.J. AFL-CIO President Charles Wowkanech with top Democrats in 2002.: Now that he's feuding with the Assembly Speaker Joe Roberts, he couldn't get on a stage like that today.
When you pick the wrong horse in a harsh political battle, paybacks in politics are often extraordinarily difficult.  That’s what New Jersey AFL-CIO President Charles Wowkanech is finding out, now that he is “persona non grata” with Assembly Speaker Joseph Roberts and the extended Roberts political organization. 

The Star-Ledger’s The Auditor had an important report on the Roberts/Wowknech feud last Sunday, and since that print version of that column sometimes differs from the online version, here are some excerpts worth noting, especially considering the players involved:

Accepting the Oscar for his leading role in the budget adaptation of "There Will Be Blood" is Governor Jon Corzine. This was a budget speech that reached out and stabbed nearly every constituency and hacked at countless services that the public holds dear. As intended, the Governor's speech was grim, sobering and gory. It was also dead wrong.

Slashing thousands of jobs of middle class workers, who had nothing to do with getting the state in this fiscal fix, is grossly unfair. More to the point, it doesn't save money, it doesn't attack patronage and it ultimately hurts all families in New Jersey. My local union, representing thousands of public workers, vehemently opposes these cuts and we intend to vigorously fight against them.

We've seen this movie before starring Governors past. As horror films go, each sequel gets bloodier. This year's version, seemingly written with a chainsaw, proposes to eliminate between 4,000 and 5,000 hard-working middle class workers while failing to present any real solution to state's ongoing fiscal problems. These cuts will be devastating to the critical services that our members provide to the public and which the public values.

For Delia

The fight for family leave insurance has a face. It also has a heart and a soul. It is personified in Robert Serrano—a marine, a hard-working grocery clerk, a proud UFCW Local 152 member, a loving husband to his beloved Delia for a dozen years, and a widower at 39 years old. It is also embodied in his wife, Delia, who Robert always called “D”. A warm and family-focused woman, who raised her nephew as her own son, who thought the best times were cuddling and watching a movie, and who cooked with love and special skill.

On Tuesday, when Governor Corzine delivers his ‘State of the State’ address, it will no doubt center on the Administration's much discussed but still undisclosed ‘asset monetization’ plan to tinker with New Jersey's beloved roadways in an effort to stabilize the state's finances.  Word on the street has it that the Governor's speech will hold out a few carrots but what he’s got in his arsenal is a really big stick. 

Here’s the 'stick'--there is a gigantic and growing pothole in the states financial infrastructure that needs fixing before the whole road collapses. And, if the pothole doesn't get fixed, a whole lot of folks are going to get hurt.

In a recent taping of Power and Politics, I was asked by Jim McQueeny to list the top five political stories of 2007.  I invite readers to share with me their lists.

In reverse order, the top five political stories for 2007 were: